In the face of mounting dangers to journalists in Iraq, CPJ
welcomes several positive developments for the press this month; U.S. freelance
reporter Jill Carroll was released
unharmed from captivity on March 30 after being held for nearly three months,
Kurdish writer Kamal Karim was
pardoned on April 3 after receiving a 30-year sentence for defamation in
December, and CBS cameraman Abdul Ameer
Younis Hussein was freed on April 6 after being detained by U.S.
forces for over a year without charge.

·U.S. freelance reporter Jill
Carroll

CPJ closely monitored
the case during Jill Carroll’s ordeal after she was abducted at gunpoint in Baghdad
on January 7. Her interpreter, Allan Enwiyah,
was shot and killed during the kidnapping. Carroll was one of the 39
journalists who have been abducted in
Iraq
since the beginning of the war, according to updated statistics released by CPJ
on the three-year anniversary of the conflict. Two other reporters—Marwan Ghazal and Reem Zaeed of Iraqi Samaria TV—are still
missing after having been kidnapped in Baghdad
on February 1.

CPJ was relieved by
the Kurdish government’s decision to pardon writer Kamal Karim on April 3, but called his six-month detention an
“outrage.” Karim was arrested last October in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil
and convicted in December of defaming public institutions. He faced a 30-year
prison term for defamation for criticizing regional President Masoud Barzani. His sentence was reduced to
18 months on March 27. Karim, an Austrian citizen, has safely returned to
Austria
,
but another writer, Hawez Hawezi,
a 31-year-old high school teacher who writes for the independent Kurdish weekly Hawlati near Arbil, now faces
unspecified defamation charges for calling for new government leadership.

After months of intensive advocacy, CPJ
welcomed the release on April 6 of CBS cameraman Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein who was held for more than a year
by
U.S.
forces
in
Iraq
without
due process. Hussein was one of the seven cases documented by CPJ
in 2005 in which
U.S.
forces detained Iraqi journalists for periods of many weeks or months without
charge or due process.

The Army detained Hussein after he was wounded by U.S.
forces’ fire as he filmed clashes in Mosul
in northern
Iraq
on April 5, 2005.
CBS News reported at the time that the
U.S.
military said footage in his camera led them to suspect Hussein had prior
knowledge of attacks on coalition forces. He was freed a day after an Iraqi
criminal court, citing a lack of evidence, acquitted him of collaborating with
insurgents.

U.S.
officials signaled a shift in policy last month, pledging to undertake prompt,
high-level reviews whenever journalists are detained by troops in
Iraq
.
Maj. Gen. John Gardner told Reuters that the military will review cases of
detained journalists within 36 hours, and news organizations will be given the
chance to vouch for their journalists.
“We are aware that journalists, by the nature of their duties, often will be at
the scene of attacks when they occur,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told CPJ
at the time.

As part of an ongoing series of luncheon discussions with international
journalists, on March 24 CPJ
hosted Masha Lipman, one of the
world’s most prominent Kremlin watchers. Lipman reports on political
developments, civil society, and press freedom in
Russia
,
and presided over a well attended discussion “Russian
Media: Controlled or Irrelevant.” Over the past six years, Russian President
Vladimir Putin and his allies have expanded their control of the
media through a
politicized judiciary, hostile corporate takeovers, and aggressive
harassment by security services. Impunity in the murders of journalists remains
a major problem; since Putin came to power in 2000, a dozen journalists have been killed in contract-style slayings, none of which
has been solved.

To mark the
United Nations’ World Press Freedom Day on May 3, CPJ
will release a special report on the most censored countries in the world,
and Executive Director Ann Cooper will participate in a panel discussion on press freedom at the United
Nations.

An in-depth
report on press freedom conditions in Saudi
Arabia
by Senior Middle East Program
Coordinator Joel Campagna will be released soon. Campagna traveled to the capital Riyadh
with Ann Cooper and CPJ
Chairman PaulSteiger in February.

Africa program coordinator Julia Crawford analyzes in a forthcoming report the political turmoil in
Ethiopia
which has led to a media crackdown, the arrest of journalists, censorship
and the closure of publications. Crawford traveled to Addis
Ababa last month with Johannesburg-based
journalist and CPJ board member Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Charles Onyango Obbo of
Kenya
’s
Nation Media Group.